Here are 12 different WordStar file converters.  They were created with
Claude AI and work correctly for the most part. They are not perfect and
do output a few strange or incorrect things, mostly in edge cases.  But
by and large I find them reliable enough for most use.

The 11 converters are as follows.

ws2txt.sh      WS to text.
ws2html.sh     WS to html.
ws2odt.sh      WS to odt (Open Document format).
ws2pdf.sh      WS to PDF.
ws2md.sh       WS to markdown.
ws2jpg.sh      WS to a series of JPG files.
ws2roff.sh     WS to groff (troff).
ws2org.sh      WS to org-mode for Emacs.
ws2rtf.sh      WS to rtf.
ws2tex.sh      WS to LaTeX.
ws2epub.sh     WS to Epub.
ws2nuc.sh      WS to the old Nucleus CMS.

There is a wrapper script, wsconv.sh, which uses this syntax:

wsconv.sh (options) output-type input-file

where the output type is one of epu, html, odt, txt, etc.  The output
file name is the basename of the input file with the appropriate suffix.
For example

wsconv.sh odt sample.ws

would output sample.odt.  For further info on choices and options, read
the wsconv.sh source code.  Note that the wrapper script does not have
an entry for ws2nuc conversion; the ws2nuc.sh converter lags behind the
others in the group.

A few sample wordstar files are included in the distribution for
(non-comprehensive) testing purposes.

Please note the following.

1  The converters work with WS 5 through 7, all versions.

2  Being in pure Bash, they are all relatively slow, especially on large
files.  The JPG converter is very slow and not recommended for more than
two or three pages.

3  These are only tested on Arch Linux.

4  It's not recommended that you convert from full justification as
there will be extra spaces between some words.

5  Not every symmetrical group type is converted, particularly colors,
fonts, and index entries.  These seem beyond the scope of these types of
converters.

6  Only some dot commands are honored.  In particular table of contents
is not translated.  This is again beyond the scope of a simple
converter.  However headers and footers are processed at least to some
extent.

Errors and issues can be reported to wordstar@bobnewell.net, but I do
not promise anything.  There are no warranties and no liabilities
accepted.  These scripts are in the public domain.

There are many wordstar conversion utilites available around the
internet.  I absolutely do not claim that these are the best by any
means.  However they do form a pretty comprehensive set and work
reasonably well.

Bob Newell

Honolulu, Hawai`i

2026-11-04
